Tomb Raider reboot delayed till spring 2013

The long-awaited revamp of Tomb Raider will not be out this year, according to developer Crystal Dynamics, although it will be available for previews at E3 next month.

Tomb Raider – another game off your Christmas list

After BioShock Infinite this is the second big name Christmas title to be delayed in the last few days, although with Tomb Raider the news that it won’t be out until the first quarter of 2013 (i.e. somewhere between January and March) is less of a surprise.Although Tomb Raider has always been implied be out this autumn no specific release date has ever been given, and the fact that virtually nothing has been seen of it since E3 last year has seemed increasingly suspicious.

Crystal Dynamics studio head Darrell Gallagher had this to say on the game’s official blog :

When Crystal Dynamics first set out to reboot the Tomb Raider franchise, there were two goals that we were extremely passionate about. The first was to create a modern Tomb Raider game that would surprise and excite gamers. The second was to make this the best game of our careers, something we would be really proud to be a part of. We truly believe that we have something very special on our hands and we can’t wait to share it with you.Our priority now is to make sure we fully deliver the very highest quality game. In order to do this, we have decided to move the game’s release date by a few months, from fall 2012 to the first quarter of 2013.We’re doing things that are completely new to Tomb Raider in this game and the additional development time will allow us to put the finishing touches into the game and polish it to a level that you deserve. We believe this is the right choice and I guarantee it will be worth the wait. The game is looking amazing and we can’t wait to show it to everyone at E3 in a few weeks.

Just as with BioShock Infinite there’s no specific reason given for the game’s delay, but with that game evidence later emerged that the extra time was being used to add a multiplayer element. There’s no suggestion that’s the case here, but it certainly wouldn’t be surprising if it was the case.

In lieu of any real revelations about the game itself Crystal Dynamics has released the new screenshot above. It shows Lara Croft discovering a dead body – following a plane crash on a mysterious island inhabited by unfriendly natives.We don’t know about you but we can’t discern any new information from the screenshot, other than the game still looks really good.